


Great Exhibition

by danwriteskink



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Animal Play, Cages, Cock & Ball Torture, Humiliation, M/M, The Five, Victoriana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 12:57:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12233310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danwriteskink/pseuds/danwriteskink
Summary: Nigel has broken one too many laws, and Watson vows to put a stop to it.





	Great Exhibition

**Author's Note:**

> For Season of Kink 2017, prompt: humiliation.

Nigel stopped for a quick change in the sewers under the bank, and that's where they caught him, half in and half out of his trousers, with as much gold bullion as he could carry in a swag over his shoulder. Two constables came splashing up the north tunnel, and when he spun to leg it in the other direction, he was face to face with another pair of boys in blue. The gold bars clattered together, a sad musical sound as the duffle fell into the stream of effluent. 

"Must be getting predictable in my old age," he said companionably to them as they dragged him, cuffed and half naked, through the filth. He'd be able to weasel out of this, he knew. There wasn't a prison that could hold an invisible man. 

At Newgate, they cuffed him to the wall and threw a bucket of paint on him. He sputtered as it dripped down his face. "Who's been flapping their lips, then?" he said, and spat bright blue onto the floor. He wasn't going to sneak out the door, not like this. Not until he could scrub the paint off his skin. 

They left him to hang for a day, at least, so that the paint had dried in a thick layer by the time that someone came to speak with him. Nigel heard the quiet clink of coins being pressed into someone's palm. The door swung open – that hinge could use some oil, Nigel thought, professional senses always extended – and Watson walked into the cell, with the warden on his heels. 

Nigel batted his thick, paint-coated eyelashes at him, as coy as a music hall queen. "So, you're the one singing to the mutton-shunters? You could have come right to me, mate. Always happy to share the love around, that's me." 

Watson turned to the warden. "Hit him." There was something disturbingly cold about Watson, standing carefully clear of the stream of water running into the drain, and the splashes of blue paint all over the tiles, not deigning to lay a finger on Nigel himself, not even with his gloved hands. Watson was making a point: he was different to Nigel, elevated or better or some other posh bullshit. This was alarming, because it was a distinction that Watson had scrupulously never drawn, not all the time that Nigel had known him. Not at Oxford, not after the Source blood, not ever. 

The warden stepped up to the wall, and Nigel opened his mouth to spit out a few choice curses, but all the air rushed out of him as the warden sunk a fist into his guts. 

"Fuck you both," he sputtered, and spat on the warden's shoes. 

Watson sighed. "I promise, that's certainly not anything that's on my agenda, Mr Griffin. I'm afraid this matter is long overdue. Hold his head, please." 

The warden grabbed a handful of Nigel's paint-encrusted hair, tugging it back until he was forced to meet Watson's eyes. 

"You have been a danger to yourself for a long time, Mr Griffin," said Watson. "However, I cannot allow your behaviour to endanger your friends. To that end, I've assumed responsibility for your rehabilitation. I intend to take that task very seriously." 

Nigel snickered, despite himself. "Always knew you wanted a piece of me, Jimmy," he said, with a leer. "You could have just asked. I'm an easy-going type of bloke. And quite skilled in some fields, or so I've been told." He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth lasciviously, though the effect was somewhat diffused by the fact that his face was covered in paint.

Watson shook his head. "One day, you'll thank me for this, Mr Griffin." Then he nodded at the warden. "Now if you could knock him out, please." The warden swung his fist, and Watson sharply amended himself. "And mind his teeth, for heaven's sake!" 

The blow came fast, merciless and properly placed. Head ringing, Nigel watched the lights swim away into darkness. 

He woke face down on clean cool white tiles, his muscles tight and bunched and his mouth dry. He blinked his eyes open properly: someone had carefully cleaned the paint from his eyelids and forehead. The air was cold on his naked back, though, and the lights, penetrating his hangover, were incredibly bright. He rested his head back on the tiles and closed his eyes. He had no idea where he was, but at the moment, his thumping head mattered more. Eventually, he rolled to one side, preparing to stand, but a sharp tug to his balls made him freeze still. Something wooden pressed firmly against his thighs, and it had his tackle trapped. Any movement of his legs pulled painfully on his balls, enough to make him yell. 

"What in the blazes?" He gingerly felt behind him: smooth wood, glossy varnish, projecting past his buttocks. The thing was sectioned in half, and between the two pieces, held his balls in a far too small opening. 

"It's called a humbler," Watson said, his voice faint, as if he were a long distance away. "I'm hopeful that it will imbue the same quality in yourself." 

Nigel rolled on his back, trying to find a way to escape the device, hissing in pain as the thing yanked viciously on his tender parts. It cost him a tug so hard he saw stars, but his fingers touched the metal of a padlock. Sweating in pain, bent double to prevent any more damage to his tackle, he felt the words etched into the metal square: Yale. Damn Watson and his money and his snobbery. 

"It's no use; you'll not be weaselling out of it," said Watson. "I assure you, it's exceptionally well made, and you'll be wearing for a long time."

Someone snickered, a man's voice. "I have to know, where exactly do you buy one of those, James?" The speaker was equally muffled, but Nigel knew that name. 

"Nikola!" Nigel bellowed, enraged. He completely forgot his situation, tried to stand, pulled cruelly on his own balls and fell sideways with a scream, curling inwards into himself. 

Somewhere, Nikola snickered. "It's as entertaining as you promised, James. Much better than your usual parties. I'm glad I came." 

The damn thing required that he crawl, and though it made his guts roil at the idea that Watson and Nikola were observing him, like an amusing scientific specimen, Nigel moved slowly and carefully on his hands and knees towards their voices. The tiled floor seemed endless – slippery and cold, despite the sweat dripping off his body – but he found his way to the edge of it, where it ended in a sheet of glass. On the other side, rippled slightly by some distortion in the thick window, he could see Watson and Nikola in evening tailcoats and bow ties. Nikola held a snifter with a more than decent splash of Watson's excellent brandy. 

Suddenly Nigel understood: the electric lights, the tiled floor and the broad, thick observation window. Watson had had him installed in the Sanctuary, where he could be watched and studied, and in Nikola's case, soundly mocked. The sweat was drying on his skin, and it goose pimpled. Nigel knew these enclosures. He'd help James build them – build them properly, so that dangerous things couldn't escape. 

"You can't do this," he said, to Watson, who had been his friend, with whom he'd gotten drunk, to whom he'd told secrets. "Why would you do this?" 

Watson's expression was like nothing Nigel had seen before: coldly angry, distant. "You put all of us at risk. You'll spend your days behind glass until I am assured that some kind of change has been effected." 

James' butler, a solid, bald, rectangle of a man came within eyeshot of the glass, and James nodded for him to approach. There was a muttered conversation and the butler retreated with a small bow. Nigel wondered if that was to be his fate: subserviently attending Watson for the rest of his life. 

"We'd best return to the party," said Watson. Perhaps anticipating Nikola's preference for playing with toys, he added, "We've still the port to pass around." 

Nikola's face brightened immediately. 

Before he left, Watson cast one last glance over Nigel's enclosure. "Nikola, would you make sure he has a water bowl? He'll have quite the hangover when he wakes up tomorrow, with all this excitement." His voice was distant, and it was believable that in his eyes, Nigel had become something lower than livestock. 

Nikola pouted. "You know I'm not made for menial labour," he said. 

"Your parents were farmers," said Watson, with a warning in his voice. "I think you'll survive." With that warning he left, his heels barely audible through the thick glass.

"Watch out, Nikola," Nigel's knees were aching, pressed against the white tiles. He flopped to one side. "There's probably a cell all set up for you, too." 

Nikola looked around, his lip curled, and found a tin bowl, battered by long use for the animals kept here. "Oh, but I'm smarter than you, Nigel, my friend. I know just how far to push before darling James snaps." He paused by the large water barrel, but didn't dip the bowl. Instead he poured the remains of his brandy into it, and pushed it through the slot in the glass. 

"Enjoy that," he said. "Hair of the dog that bit you, as you Englishmen say. I think you'll be needing the strength." 

Despite his dry mouth, Nigel pulled himself upright and rallied a mouthful of saliva to spit at Nikola's face. Nikola gave a satisfying flinch, even though the gobbet hit the glass first. Nikola gave a somewhat awkward bow, and turned his back on Nigel, heading for the door back into the house. 

A few seconds after Nikola had left the exhibition hall, the electric lights dimmed, and the activity in the other enclosures settled. Nigel, still on his knees, shuffled around his new home, and found a folded blanket. With some difficulty, swearing each time the humbler wrenched at his balls, he unfolded it, and threw it over himself. Might as well try to get comfortable. It seemed like he was going to be here for a while.


End file.
